ORIENTATION OF THE FIELD GALAXIES IN THE LOCAL SUPERCLUSTER

In this paper we studied the orientation of the spin vectors (SVs) for 302 field galaxies in the Local Supercluster (LSC). All galaxies in o ur sample are selected from the Photometric Atlas of Northern Bright G alaxies after an exclusion of the members of the clusters and groups o f galaxies with at least five members within the LSC. The SV orientati on of these field galaxies is found to be anistropic, which is well sh own in chi(2) tests of the azimuthal angle and area distributions. The histograms of the polar angle distribution exhibit a weak tendency th at the field galaxies in the LSC preferentially have their SVs paralle l to the LSC plane. Comparison with the results for the Virgo cluster members shows that the post-formation epoch dynamics did perturb the g alactic SV orientation. This is supported by two facts: (i) There is a significant hump at high polar angle for the Virgo members while no s imilar hump is found in our sample. (ii) The SV projections on the LSC plane for the field galaxies show their excess direction significantl y deviated from the direction pointing towards the Virgo center, unlik e the Virgo cluster members. (C) 1997 American Astronomical Society.